Stating the obvious, security is something that we value very much. If you've been paying attention to the debt ceiling talks, you know the problems we may have with social security and how important it is. Of course, even that pales to the value that we place on personal security. Alarm companies get rich from our need for personal security. People use personal security as a basis for supporting the second amendment (and some of them actually mean it). People take self-defense classes and/or martial arts to improve their feelings about their personal security. It's obviously the most important type of security: without it, what else really matters? Oh: in case anyone asks, national security fits under personal security.
There are two other types of security that keep us from being hurt in non-physical ways...although there is many a time in which they actually hurt us. Huh? I'll explain.
We as humans also love emotional security. We love being in charge of our feelings, so on and so forth. We have varying measures of maintaining that emotional secuity. Some of us hold things in so we don't appear vulnerable. Some of us get everything out so we don't let our feelings consume us. Some of us hide from our feelings and/or pretend they aren't there. These varying measures work to varying degrees, and of course they are all case-specific.
Those of us who consider ourselves smart - which is pretty much all of us, and I'll ignore the matter of people being correct in this regard for now - also value intellectual security. Stated another way, we all like to be right. If we're arguing about Barry Sanders being a better running back than Emmitt Smith, we want to be right. If we think the highway provides a faster commute to work than the back streets, we want to be right. That's all well and good. The problem arises when we take shortcuts on our way to the land of intellectual security. Stated another way, we often call such actions prejudicial.
Oh, we swear we know everything - and I think we all know the effects that prejudice has had on world history. Since I wouldn't be breaking any new ground there, I'm moving on. Prejudice also has a plethora of other effects on our lives, the majority of which are personal. It affects the way we see people, whether we choose to interact with people, how we interact with people...prejudice can impact any and all aspects of our social lives if we allow it to.
One instance in which prejudice is a real problem? Dealing with people on the other side of the chromosome barrier - especially in matters concerning attraction. This is where the combination of intellectual security and emotional security can go really wrong. After we gain what we feel is a decent sample of dating experience, we start to make generalizations about those in the pool of people we consider. These things can very greatly - and while they are often related to preferences, they are different in the sense that they have a semblance of objectivity (which doesn't necessarily make them better).
Me? I promise as sure as I'm sitting here that birthplace and university affiliation are huge considerations because I've had more than one bad experience with people who have such things in common. Once is an accident, twice is a trend...probably the only smart thing Chris Berman ever said - and yes, I know he went to an Ivy League school. At any rate, a whole bunch of us have at least one thing that we will not tolerate because of past experiences. "I'm never dating anyone who's Greek! I will not go out with an athlete! If that person doesn't benefit from a Republican-sponsored tax break they will never see the best of me!"
So we go with this form of prejudice. Why? It makes us feel safe in our intellectual security. For what? We want to be emotionally secure and not relive the bad feelings that people from our past contributed to. It's understandable. We have a right to do so, like we have a right to our preferences.
At the same time, we have to realize that prejudices and preferences keep us single. Each prejudice and preference we have closes off available options. If you want a man who's 6 feet tall, you're closing off 6 out of 7 people with Y chromosomes. If you want a woman who doesn't drink, well...lots of luck. If you want a man who doesn't like sports, I wish you well. If you want a woman who doesn't employ double standards, I welcome you to the brotherhood of bachelorhood.
We go through all these mental measures to make ourselves feel better - which is funny, because the point of relationships is to make the other person feel better. Now, most of us say we want someone (and all of us do: some of us just try to lie to ourselves) but we act in a manner that contradicts our desires. Yes, humans are funny like that. Fact of the matter is: trying to find someone while holding on to your intellectual and emotional security is like trying to run a marathon with an anchor attached to each leg. You can do it, but it'll take a really long time - and that's the race you want to finish so you can get to a new beginning.
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